Mole, famous for having myriad ingredients and inumerable variations, is actually very easy to make--if you have six people working at it at once, that is... We made Mole from scratch today in our cooking class, which basically involved frying: onion, garlic, several different kinds of dried chiles, almonds, bread, corn tortillas, banana... We trew that all in the blender, added some chicken broth, added some chicken... Heavens. It was unspeakably good. It was like "Like Water for Chocolate." I rather felt like weeping openly upon eating it. I refrained, however, and contented myself with smiling broadly... In all honesty, it wasn't really that difficult to make, and wouldn't be even with only one person doing it. The thing is to have all your ingredients ready, which is quite a task unto itself, seeing as how they are indeed many.
After our delicious lunch, Mother and I headed for the Centro to do some further exploring. Our first stop was a Paleteria Michoacana for a mango-chile popsicle, a purely Mexican phenomenon, and a wonderful one. Sitting in the unbroken shade of the miticulously pruned box-shaped trees in the Jardin de la Union, we were accosted by a man draped in beautifully embroidered sarapes, wool rugs, handmade ponchos. "Senoritas..." He began. As he had caught us while we were sitting, it was rather difficult to avoid him with a simple "No, thanks." And he was not to be deterred.
"Here," he said to me, shaking a poncho in my direction. "Try this on, so that your mother can see." I stood up, rather hesitantly, to be draped with the cream-colored poncho. "I have one in a lovely grey, as well," he said. "Let me go and get it for you."Before we could respond, he had dashed off to where ever he kept his stash of woven good, leaving me standing there still wearing the poncho, obviously giving no thought to the fact that I could have been down the street and around the corner with it, had I been so inclined--which of course I wasn't. He rushed back with a new pile of rugs and throws, and started making us offers. "I'll tell you what," he said, signaling a poncho and a throw, "I'll give you these two for 800" (Pesos, or $80). "For me, that's not so good, but for you, it's an excellent bargain." In the end, we ended up buying a single throw. We certainly hadn't meant to do anything of the sort, but this fellow, as I said, was not to be deterred. He was making a sale, dammit, and he was making it now (granted, he was extremely polite and friendly).
We were feeliong a bit burnt out, I suppose from all the haggling, so we ducked into the Plazuela de San Fernando, a quiet, cafe-lined plaza set back from the bustle of the street. Mother and I sat down under a canvas umbrella at Cafe Bossanova, famous for its crepes (more on that later), and ordered coffee and tea, respectively. It was so pleasant there, quiet and cool, with a bubbling fountain and flocks of cooing pigeons. We sat there for a while, passing the heat of the day, listening to a few older men with guitars serenading diners. It was perfectly peaceful. We could have sat for hours...
When we were feeling revived and reinvigorated, ready to face the roar (albeit a farily dim one) of the main road once again, we set off toward the Mercado Hidalgo. It was quiet, really, on a Wednesday, but there were still plenty of neat things to check out. We also popped into a store selling goods from Oaxaca: beautiful beaded bracelets, colorful tin milagros, chocolate and containers of Mole paste... I'd be far better able to resist buying things here if they weren't so cheap, but as it is, I think I've really been pretty good. I haven't bought excessive amounts of tchotchkes (although it could be argued that any amout is excessive), and I never really shop for anything at home... Rationalize, rationalize!
We stopped for ears of roasted corn with lime and chile from a street vendor (yum), and then decided to go to mass at the San Diego Church, a small, gorgeous chapel. The priest, a slow stiff old man, was like the king in The Princess Bride: "Miimblewimble mummumble... Por losh shiglosdeloshfiglos Amen..." He said "vosotros," but I couldn't hear him well enought to ascertain if he was from Spain. There were few people at mass (it was a Wednesday), a few men and a group of off-key Carmelite nuns. It wa nice, though, sitting in that beautiful old church...
We actually went back to Cafe Bossanova for dinner--their crepes had sounded too tempting. While we were in mass, the sky had grown rather tempestuous--dark grey, emmitiing deep rolls of thunder now and again. We walked quickly to get there before the rain. We sat at a dim table under an umbrella, lit by a guttering candle. The wind blew through, extinguishing the flame entirely. I tried futiley to relight it. Really, though, we were fairly sheltered where we sat, looking out at the rainy, twilight plaza. We both ordered Cuitlacoche crepes. Cuitlacoche is a kind of fungus that apparenly grows only on ears of corn in Mexico, like a small, fuzzy mushroom. It's called Aztec Caviar. They were very, very good, rich and light at once, covered in a cilantro sauce. We watched the rain fall in the plazuela (or at least, it looked as though it was falling--though later the sidewalk wasn't wet at all... Strange). It was a lovely relaxed dinner, and we even went insofar as to have dessert: a "Cholobananacoco" crepe, which was, as it says, a crepe covered with chocolate, bananas, and shredded coconut.
Mother and I wound our way through the cool, shadowy streets to the subterranean bus stop. Ahead of us the Basilica loomed. In the distance mariachis sang, We hauled beck our purchases and were content.
Mother, you will note, appears in essentially all these photos--she is like the ubiquitous globe-trotting garden gnome in "Amelie."
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